Lynda Sandoval – Her Favourite Holiday Gift (страница 1)

“Good to see you after all these years. How have you been?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Colleen asked, her blue eyes molten.

Eric sighed. “Listen. Join me for lunch. We can discuss this like reasonable professionals.”

She blinked in surprise. “You…you’re asking me to lunch?”

“Why wouldn’t I? We used to be friends.” He imbued the last word with a meaning only she’d understand.

Her face pinkened. “Those days are long over.”

His brain flooded with memories of a different Colleen. A night he absolutely had to put out of his mind during the case. Sleeping with Colleen had been one hell of a beautiful mistake, one he’d never forgotten…

Would never forget.

Despite the fact that she was back in his life, he aimed to keep everything strictly professional. When it came to Colleen Delaney, that was his only choice.

Lynda Sandoval is a former police officer who exchanged the excitement of that career for blissfully isolated days creating stories she hopes readers will love. Though she’s also worked as a youth mental health and runaway crisis counsellor, a television extra, a trade-show art salesperson, a European tour guide and a bookkeeper for an exotic bird and reptile company—among other weird jobs—Lynda’s favourite career, by far, is writing books. In addition to romance, Lynda writes women’s fiction and young adult novels, and in her spare time she loves to travel, quilt, bid on eBay, hike, read and spend time with her dog. Lynda also works parttime as an emergency fire/medical dispatcher for the fire department. Readers are invited to visit Lynda on the web at www.LyndaLynda.com.

Her Favourite Holiday Gift

Lynda Sandoval

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Susan Litman, for graciously inviting me

to join the project, and Charles Griemsman,

just for being awesomely you.

Chapter One

Colleen Delaney strode from the executive conference room, shoulders back and head held high…barely. She’d gone a full ten rounds in the ring of office politics and taken her fair share of cheap blows. But in the end, she’d prevailed. The Ned Jones case was all hers.

She should feel triumphant. Exhilarated. Vindicated.

Instead, anger rolled through her veins like spilled mercury, fluid and shining and toxic. The sting of unshed tears burned her eyes and the mere notion of letting them fall deepened her anger. Showing weakness within the palatial walls of McTierney, Wenzel, Scott and Framus?

Not an option.

Not for her.

Not ever.

After all these years of grinding through the grunt cases, winning the unwinnables, never uttering a complaint, she’d still had to beg the partners for a boon assignment that should’ve been hers without question. Unbelievable. She’d devoted her entire law career to this firm, had more than earned their respect—or should’ve, considering her impeccable track record in the courtroom, her professionalism, her team attitude. The partners should’ve acknowledged all that and rewarded her for it with the Jones case—minus the battle. Because she deserved it, plain and simple. But there was that one small detail….

She was female.

Her jaw tightened.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that women weren’t welcome in this boys’ club, not even when the woman in question kicked the boys’ butts all over Chicago’s legal system and proved herself more than worthy.

Repeatedly.

McTierney, Wenzel, Scott and Framus, Attorneys-at-Law, had a long history of pressing female lawyers against that glass ceiling until they couldn’t breathe anymore. Until they lost their fight. Until they simply…left. Ironically, it was the main reason Colleen had sought out this firm in the first place, which sometimes made her wonder about her sanity. But that infamous glass ceiling lured her as the penultimate challenge. She wanted to punch her fist straight through it in honor of all the excellent female attorneys who’d come and gone, who’d been treated like dirt, who’d given up.

Colleen Delaney didn’t give up.

She would be the one who busted through to a full partner position if it killed her. The boys could smell her single-minded ambition like prey scenting a hungry lioness on the hunt. It only made them scramble even harder to prevent her from succeeding. Maybe that was her problem. She was too good at her job, too unwilling to be placed into some societal box, too much of a fighter. Yeah? Well, too bad. The old boys could try to keep Lioness Delaney in her place all they wanted. It wouldn’t work.

What if you get married?

What if you decide to have babies?

What if you put the firm at a disadvantage because of your damn biological clock?

A new wave of fury crested and broke over her as she recalled the numerous times she’d heard carefully phrased versions of those inconceivable questions while being told some pimple-faced male junior attorney had leapfrogged her for a promotion that should’ve been hers, for a career-making case that should’ve landed on her desk. The partners couldn’t state outright that she wasn’t getting ahead because she was female, of course. But somehow they always managed to drive the point home without crossing any discriminatory lines.

Her conservative Prada pumps echoed like combat boots on the stark marble hallway that led to the cramped, windowless office where she planned to spend as many hours as it took to win this all-important case. Because one thing was certain:

They could give her the worst office in the entire building.

They could downplay her talents and use her reproductive system or the fact that she had the occasional pedicure as an excuse for holding her back.

They could ignore her achievements and treat her like a junior law clerk.

But if she succeeded in winning Ned Jones versus Taka-Hanson, aka Working Man versus The Corporate Monster? No way in hell could Mick McTierney, Richard Wenzel, Harrison Scott or Bill Framus justify not making her partner, and they damn well knew it. This time, she held the reins.

Safely behind the locked door of her claustrophobic cube of an office, she chucked the case files into a messy manila fan on her marred desktop, sank into her chair, rested her forehead in her uncharacteristically shaky hands.

Deep breaths. Calm. Cool.

Regardless of what it took, she’d end up on top this time. Screw the glass ceiling. This case was her golden opportunity to shatter it to hell, once and for all. She’d show them. At this point in her career, she had no choice. She didn’t want to start over when she was this close to making partner, making history in the firm.

And—sad but true—she’d rather die than end up with a life like her mother’s, molding herself into the perfect little wife when the right man—or any willing man—came along. Colleen loved her mother, but she didn’t respect her. Couldn’t. Sure, she felt guilty about that, but what could she do? The main thing Colleen had learned growing up with her mother’s example? She’d rather be hated but respected than loved and pitied.

She didn’t need love to thrive.

She needed success.

Autonomy.

So there it was. She would win this case, damn it, and nab the partner position she should’ve had years ago. And, now that her goal was in sight, nothing, absolutely nothing on earth, could throw her off course.

Eric Nelson was staring slack-jawed with disbelief at the paper he held when the door to his temporary work space—a rarely used conference room at Taka-Hanson headquarters—opened. He glanced up to see his old friend Jack Hanson shoulder halfway past the doorjamb and pause.

“Am I interrupting?” Jack gripped the edge of the door. “I knocked, but—”

Eric shuffled the papers aside and shook off his preoccupation. “Not at all. What’s up?”

“Wanted to run something by you.” Jack crossed the room and sprawled in the chair on the opposite side of the expansive table. He pulled his chin back and studied Eric for a good long stretch. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, pal. Everything okay?”

No. Everything was the opposite of okay. Eric glanced out the window at the gray Chicago skyline. Snow had begun to fall in fat, wet flakes.

Perfect backdrop for his mood.

He hadn’t hesitated when Jack asked him to represent Taka-Hanson for this trumped-up wrongful termination case. The two of them went back to their law-school years, and Eric never said no to a friend in need. The high-profile status of the case didn’t hurt either. He relished the challenge.

Or, he’d thought so until he’d read the name of the counsel for the plaintiff. Turning back from the window, Eric shook his head, aware he’d been lost in his own thoughts. “Yeah, I’m…Actually, let me ask you something.” He shoved his fingers through his already uncooperative hair, blew out a breath. He couldn’t bluff Jack Hanson. Did he really want to? “You remember much about law school?”

A wistfulness passed over Jack’s expression like swift-moving cloud shadow. Eric knew Jack still missed practicing law, though working for the family business had been the right move after the Hanson patriarch had passed away a few years ago. Losing Jack had been a blow to the law firm, though. One they still felt.